


105

by Anonymous



Series: Absent Fathers [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dubious Consent, Former Prostitute Dean Winchester, Gen, Set in a nebulous post 15x19 world, Underage Prostitution, and jack gave up his powers, oh boy, where eileen is alive
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-20 19:07:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30009564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “I--” Charlie's breath stutters. “Sam, I-- you need to see something.”
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Series: Absent Fathers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2207571
Comments: 14
Kudos: 83
Collections: anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the tags.  
> There is no forced sex in this fic, referenced or otherwise, but given that Dean was underage and in a desperate situation I tagged rape.  
> There will be at least one more chapter of this one. There will be at least two more (unconnected) fics in this series which in some way will feature Dean being sexually abused.  
> Thanks for reading, hope you like it, and I love comments.

The text from Charlie pops up on Sam’s screen just as he’s about to go to sleep. 

_ U up? _

Sam frowns. She must see that he’s read her text, because his phone lights up with her incoming call. He answers on the first ring. 

“Hey, Charlie, something wrong?”

“I--” her breath stutters. “Sam, I-- you need to see something.”

Sam swings his legs over the side of the bed as any fatigue he might have been feeling vanishes. Beside him, Eileen sits up. He signs Charlie’s name at her and she nods.

“Okay,” Sam tells Charlie. “What is it? Do you need help?”

“I’ll email it to you,” she says. “And no. I’m fine. But, Sam-- promise me you won’t let anyone else see this.”

“Charlie, what--”

“Promise me.”

Sam says, “I promise. Now will you tell me what the hell is going on?”

She hangs up.

Eileen raises her eyebrows at Sam. She signs,  _ Is Charlie okay? _

Sam shrugs and responds,  _ I don’t know.  _

His phone dings with an email. Considering the username is “hackergirl67”, Sam’s pretty sure it’s Charlie. 

The only thing in the email is a link. 

“I have to look at this,” Sam tells Eileen, signing as he speaks. “She said I had to do it alone. I’m going for a drive.” Sam has no clue what Charlie emailed him, but if it’s bad enough for her to ask him to keep it away from anyone else...

Eileen nods. Her eyes are curious, but she doesn’t ask anything else. Sam pulls on some clothes, kisses Eileen goodbye, and closes the door behind himself. 

Sam drives thirty miles away from town before pulling onto the side of a dirt road and putting the Impala in park. 

He opens Charlie’s email and clicks the link.

It takes a moment for his phone to work, but when the page loads, Sam nearly drops his phone. 

Charlie… sent him porn from an almost certainly illegal website?

Sam knows her well enough to know this must be important, though-- she sounded truly upset-- so he forces himself to study the thumbnail of the video. 

It takes a moment for him to recognize Dean, mostly because of the cock shoving into Dean’s mouth and the hands on Dean’s face. But Sam would know his brother’s eyes anywhere.

It takes Sam another moment to realize Dean is young in this video. 

Not just younger than he is now, or younger than he was when they met Cas. Younger than he was when Sam went to Stanford. 

Sam hits the play button with shaking hands. He puts the video on double speed and does his best to analyze what he’s watching as a hunter, not as a brother. 

They’re in a bathroom stall somewhere, judging by the tile beneath Dean’s knees and the grimy walls. There’s at least two people: one person filming, and one person doing-- one person with Dean. 

That’s all Sam can gather. It’s not enough.

He switches it back to its normal speed when Dean starts struggling against the grip on his face. 

A voice says, “Swallow and I’ll throw in another five.”

There’s a pause in which Sam’s world falls apart. 

The camera focuses on Dean’s throat working as he swallows. 

Sam somehow gets the Impala’s door open before he throws up.

When Sam’s ears have stopped ringing, he gets back into the driver’s seat. He almost wishes he and Cas hadn’t tossed Dean’s emergency stash of booze that used to be in the trunk. If nothing else, a drink would get the taste of bile out of his mouth. 

Sam picks up his phone and takes a deep breath. He scrolls to where he’d stopped watching. There isn’t much left of the video, which is the only thing that gets Sam to hit play.

When the unknown man pulls out of Dean’s mouth, Sam’s brother coughs once and climbs to his feet. The camera follows Dean, careful to keep the other man’s face out of the frame.

Dean swipes the back of his arm over his mouth. He says, in a voice both rougher and higher than it is now, “That’s a hundred and five.”

“Steep for a fucking blowjob,” a voice from behind the camera says. “Seems to me it should be more like fifty five.”

“Filming’s fifty bucks,” Dean shoots back. “So unless you’re looking for a group discount, you owe a hundred and five.”

The man filming grumbles, but five twenties and a five flutter to the ground. 

“Turn around and pick them up,” the voice behind the camera orders. “For a c-note, I want a look at that ass.”

Dean smiles the smile he used to give cute waitresses and obeys. The camera zooms in, and Sam--

Sam recognizes the emblem on the back of the too-tight worn black denim Dean’s wearing. Sam begged for days for those pants. They vanished in the wash after Sam outgrew them. 

Sam never thought to ask what happened to them. For that matter, he never asked how Dean got the money for them. 

Sam pauses the video as his stomach rolls over. When he has himself under control again, he hits play.

Dean stands up with the money crumpled in his hand.

“Pleasure doing business,” the man behind the camera says, and the video ends. 

Sam sits in the car with his forehead pressed against the Impala’s steering wheel.


	2. Chapter 2

Eventually, the buzzing of his phone brings Sam back to Earth. Eileen is video calling him. He lets the call ring out.

Sam doesn’t know what else to do, so he calls Charlie. 

She picks up quickly. 

The crackle of the connection fills the silence between them until Charlie states, “You watched it.”

“Yeah. Did you?” Sam’s voice is even.

“No. God, no, Sam, I-- I wouldn’t do that.”

“So why would you have me do it?” Sam’s anger breaks his tenuous composure. “Jesus Christ, Charlie, I--”

“What was I supposed to do?” Charlie shouts. “Tell me what you would have done, Sam, because that video is posted on six different sites and it’s only a matter of time before someone recognizes him. You needed to know.”

Sam drops his head back to the steering wheel. She has a point, no matter how badly Sam’s betrayed Dean by watching that video. “Tell me you can take it down.”

“I’m working on it,” she says grimly. “But, Sam, they’ve got this backed up pretty well. It’s-- look, you saw how young Dean was. They’re being careful.”

“But it’s popular,” Sam surmises. He does his best to ignore the implications of  _ how young Dean was _ .

Charlie makes a noise that might be a sob. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

Neither of them say anything for at least a minute. Sam listens to Charlie try not to cry while he unclenches and clenches his fist rhythmically. 

“I have to tell Dean,” Sam says. 

“I know. That’s why I sent it to you. I didn’t-- look, I have alerts set up for all of our faces, I didn’t mean to--”

“I know, Charlie. It’s not your fault.”

When Sam finds out whose fault it is, he might show them what he learned in the Cage. But he doesn’t blame Charlie. 

“I’m going back to the Bunker,” Sam says. “But-- Charlie?”

She sniffles. “Yeah?”

“I needed to know.” 

Sam ends the call. 

Eileen, Dean, Cas, and Jack are clustered around a table in the library when Sam walks in. Dean is the first to notice him. Sam’s brother rises to his feet immediately.

“Where were you?” Dean’s voice is tight, but worried rather than accusatory. He’s been working on that. So has Sam. It’s taken a while for them to loosen their grips on each other a little bit, but they’re working on it. 

Sam realizes he’s avoiding what he needs to do by thinking about that, so he says, “I need to talk to you. Alone.”

“What’s wrong?” Dean demands. 

At the same time, Cas asks, “What happened?” 

Eileen is studying Sam’s face. “What did Charlie send you?”

“Charlie’s fine, nobody’s dead or hurt, just-- I need to talk to Dean.”

Dean’s shoulders are tense, but he nods. He drops a hand onto Cas’ shoulder, squeezes it, and then follows Sam out of the room. 

Sam closes the door to his room after Dean follows him through. 

Dean raises an eyebrow. “All right, Sam, break it to me.”

Sam doesn’t know how. He opens his mouth, closes it, and then collapses onto the bed. 

“Sammy?” Dean crouches down to Sam’s level. “Just tell me, dude. It can’t be that bad.”

Sam forces himself to make eye contact with his brother. “Dean, do you remember giving someone a blowjob on film for a hundred and five bucks?”

Dean snorts. “You really asking me if-- what, if I was some kind of truck stop hooker? You think Dad would’ve--”

“Dean,” Sam says softly. “I saw the video. You were wearing my old black jeans and that tank top Dad kept telling you to throw away.” 

Dean closes his eyes as his mask of disbelief falls away. His face is drawn and tired. “Sammy--”

“How old were you, Dean?”

“Eighteen.” Dean’s answer is too fast.

“Bullshit.”

Dean pushes himself to his feet and walks over to Sam’s sink. He stares at himself in the mirror. “Does it fucking matter?”

“Of course it does,” Sam says.

“I had to keep you fed.”

Sam had suspected as much. It doesn’t make it any easier to hear. “Did Dad know?”

“Did Dad know that his perfect little soldier was a cocksucking little whore? Gee, Sam, do I look like I’m dead to you?”

“Dean.”

“Fuck off.” Dean’s voice reminds Sam of a wounded animal’s snarl. 

Sam prepares himself to get punched. “Dean, that video is on at least half a dozen sites. Charlie’s working on it, but--”

Dean doesn’t punch Sam. Instead, he goes perfectly still. “What?”

“Someone put it online.”

“I’m going to kill them,” Dean says matter-of-factly. 

He slams his fist into Sam’s mirror. Then he does it again.

Sam manages to catch Dean’s arm before he does it a third time, but Dean’s hand is already dripping blood. 

“Dean, what the hell?”

“I’m going to kill them,” Dean repeats. His voice is shaking, but his eyes are blazing when he meets Sam’s gaze.

“Good,” Sam says. “Because I was going to if you weren’t.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on Tumblr as crucifixinhell-- new account-- if y'all wanna request fic, get updates on WIPs, or just hang out :)  
> Thanks for reading, hope you like it, and I love hearing from y'all.

“What do I tell Cas?” Dean stares at the floor as Sam bandages Dean’s hand carefully. 

“He doesn’t know?”

“Oh, yeah, because that’s a conversation I want to have. ‘Hey, Cas, by the way, the guy you’ve been sleeping with for a year used to take it up the ass from complete strangers for seventy bucks--’”

Sam’s hand tightens around Dean’s injured one. Dean winces slightly and stops talking.

Sam wants to ask so many things. If Dean was careful. If he ever got hurt. Sam wants to ask how long, how many people, how many of Dean’s first times were with strangers just paying for a pretty kid to get on his knees or his back or--

Sam forces himself to keep bandaging Dean’s hand. “Cas won’t care. Or, he’ll care, but it won’t change how he feels about you.”

“No one wants to be with a whore for more than one night,” Dean says. It sounds like he’s quoting somebody. 

Sam doesn’t ask who. Maybe he will after the immediate threat has been dealt with. “Cas loves you, Dean. It won’t change anything.”

Dean’s mouth twitches. Sam finishes with the bandages and waits for his brother to speak. When he does, Dean changes the subject. 

“Someone’s gonna find out.” Dean flexes his injured hand. “The great Dean Winchester, serial killer with a tragic backstory. They’ll say it explains everything. And everyone will know.”

“Charlie will get it taken down.”

“Before it winds up on Pornhub?” Dean doesn’t even sound angry, just tired. “Before some pervert sends it to the media? Nah. Shit like this doesn’t just _get taken down_ , Sam.”

Sam doesn’t know what to say.

“I’m going to go talk to Cas,” Dean says. “Not sure what to say, but… I guess I have to. Anyway. Sorry, uh, sorry about the mirror.”

He closes the door softly behind him. 

Sam stares at the fragments of glass on his carpet.

He calls Charlie. When she picks up, he says, “Please tell me you have good news.”

“I’m trying. But they’re all using Tor browsers.” She pauses. “If I sent it to the FBI, they might be able to get it done faster. It would be more resources.”

“No cops.”

“Thought you might say that. Do you want me to prioritize getting it off the web, or tracking down the source?”

Sam breathes through the pulse of _findhuntkill_ that goes through him. “Make sure no one ever sees it again.”

“On it.” Sam hears the clicking of a keyboard over the line. “Did you tell Dean?”

“Yeah.”

“How’s he doing?”

Sam glances at where his mirror used to be. “About as well as you’d expect.”

“That bad, huh?”

He doesn’t answer. 

Charlie says, “Take care of him.” 

“Always do.” Sam hangs up.

Sam is still sitting on his bed when Eileen comes in. She doesn’t ask, just sits down beside him and pulls his head onto her shoulder. The position is uncomfortable on Sam’s neck, but it’s also exactly what he needs. 

When he starts crying, Eileen pushes him backwards until he’s lying down, pulls his head into her lap, and strokes her hand through his hair.

“I didn’t know,” he whispers into her leg. Her hand halts briefly before resuming its path. Sam knows she can’t tell what he’s saying like this. That’s the point. 

“I didn’t know,” he says. “How could I not know?”

There’s a knock on their door a while after Sam’s breathing has evened out. 

“Come in,” Eileen calls. Sam sits up.

The door swings open. Dean and Cas are framed in the doorway. Dean has what looks like a death grip on Cas’ hand. Cas’ face is inscrutable.

“I, uh.” Dean takes a deep breath. “Did you tell Eileen?”

“Tell me what?” Eileen demands.

“That’s your choice,” Sam says. God knows Dean hasn’t had many choices, lately.

“Well, not really.” Dean tries to pull his hand out of Cas’ grip, but Cas holds on. Dean settles for running his free hand over his face. “You seen the news lately?”

Sam’s stomach, already roiling, drops about a foot. “Did they--”

“They’ve got a psychologist talking about how damaging prostitution is on Fox News,” Dean says lightly. “Tucker Carlson’s pretty sure it’s the gay part that made me a murderer, though.”

Sam’s pretty sure he and Cas are the only ones who can tell how close to the edge Dean is. The edge of what, exactly, Sam’s not sure. If they’re lucky, it’s Dean breaking his sober streak. If they’re not, it’s something more along the lines of Dean deciding to lock himself in a box and drop himself in the ocean.

“Dean,” Eileen says, snapping her fingers to get his attention before continuing in sign. _What’s going on?_

Dean’s hand goes white around Cas’. The angel doesn’t react, just watches Eileen blankly. Sam would bet the Impala that Cas’ alien calm is hiding boundless anger. 

Cas lets go of Dean’s hand when Dean tugs on it this time.

Dean’s hands are shaking as he signs, _I fucked people for money. A video got posted._

It’s blunt enough to make Sam flinch. Eileen just nods. 

“What are we doing about it?” she asks. 

Sam thinks, not for the first time, that he will never stop falling deeper in love with Eileen.

Some of the tension in Dean’s face eases at her lack of a reaction. “We wait for Charlie to get us names, and we make them regret this”

Sam thinks about _that’s not who I am_. 

He thinks about too-tight jeans and a too-bright smile and a too-young kid.

Sam says, “And we talk to Rowena after.”

Cas smiles. Sam is reminded of why he was terrified of the angel, once. 

It’s just the four of them at dinner, with Jack visiting Kelly in Heaven. They’re picking at takeout when Dean’s phone rings. He glances at it, then answers the call and hits the speaker button. 

“Hey, Charlie.”

“Dean.” Charlie sounds relieved. “How are--”

“Tell me you have some names for me,” Dean says. 

Under normal circumstances, Sam’s pretty sure that Charlie would force Dean to make small talk for at least two minutes to make up for the interruption.

Today, Charlie just says, “I’ll do you one better. I have an address.”

“I remember it was Reno,” Dean says. “They still there?”

Sam remembers Reno. He remembers needing money for textbooks; he remembers John leaving them rent money for a month and being gone for seven weeks; he remembers Dean slipping out at night and coming back early in the morning to shower; he remembers hating his brother a little bit for caring about some girl more than the fact that they'd been living off peanut butter for days.

 _Oh, Christ._ Sam swallows bile.

“Yep,” Charlie confirms. “I’ll text it to you. One computer, so you’ll have to get any other names out of whoever posted it.” She pauses. “That won’t be a problem, I assume.”

“You assume correctly,” Cas states. Sam nods. 

“Good,” Charlie says. “Good. That’s good. Um, guys, I got the video yanked on all the websites, but not before someone sent it to a few news channels.”

“We know,” Dean says. “You hear that giving blowjobs is a surefire sign of becoming a serial killer?”

Charlie laughs a little. So does Dean. Sam can’t bring himself to join in-- his brother’s laugh is far too harsh.

Charlie says, “My lesbian ass will keep that in mind. Anything else you need?”

“Nah.” Dean’s hand is in Cas’ again. “Thanks, Charlie.”

“No problem. I take payments in chocolate and contract killings.” 

She hangs up on that note. Seconds later, Dean’s phone lights up with a text from her. Dean scans the message and shoves it back in his pocket.

“Looks like we’re headed to Reno,” Dean says. “I’m… Cas, could you bring Jack back down here? I gotta talk to the kid.”

 _Oh_ , Sam realizes, somewhat belatedly. _Oh, shit._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I should probably state for the record that I support the decriminalization of prostitution for a variety of reasons. So. I support the decriminalization of prostitution.  
> I may or may not have written this chapter instead of working on a final paper...  
> Thanks for reading, hope you like it, and I love hearing from y'all!

As he waits for Dean to emerge from Jack’s room, Sam’s leg is bouncing hard enough to shake the library chair. He wishes Eileen was here, but Dean made it clear that he didn’t want her involved in this trip. Sam is respecting that. 

Any choice Dean has, Sam wants to give him. 

For all Dean and Eileen care about each other, for all the Hell they have in common, Sam knows Dean doesn’t yet trust Eileen to see the parts of him shaped by Alastair. Those parts of Dean are already showing through, and they’ll only get worse as Reno gets closer.

There is a fundamental difference between the time Dean spent in Hell and the time Eileen did. Eileen never got off the rack. She was never given the option to. 

(“I would have,” she confessed to Sam three months ago, shuddering from memories. “If they’d asked me, I would have said yes. Maybe not that first day, but I would have. But they weren’t trying to break me like that.”

Sam doesn’t judge her for that. How could he, when he would have given anything to be the one with the blade in the Cage? How could he, when the strongest man Sam’s ever known broke?)

Dean has never said it out loud, but Sam knows that on Dean’s bad days he looks at Eileen and sees every soul he tore apart. Eileen has never told Sam, but Sam is pretty sure that on Eileen’s bad days she looks at Dean and sees every demon who tore her apart.

Point being, Dean doesn’t want Eileen watching him torture somebody, and Eileen isn’t protesting. 

Sam doesn’t want to watch Dean torture someone either. But it won’t break him, and Dean needs him there. 

Cas’ hand lands on his shoulder. Sam jolts slightly. 

“Jack will understand,” Cas says. 

That’s not what Sam is worried about, but somehow Sam thinks Cas knows that. Sam accepts the distraction, asking, “Does Jack even know what sex is? Are we sure Dean should be--”

“Jack was God,” Cas interrupts, somewhat wryly. “I am fairly certain he knows what sex is.”

Sam snorts. 

Cas takes the seat across the table from Sam and folds his hands on the tabletop. “How are you, Sam?”

“Shouldn’t you be asking Dean that?”

“I have,” Cas says mildly. “And he told me he was fine.” The angel’s tone conveys heavy skepticism about that proclamation. 

“If Dean’s fine, I’m fine.”

“Considering how far Dean is from fine, that implies several things about your current state of mind.”

Sam starts to snap at Cas, but he sees the depths of concern in his friend’s eyes and sighs instead. 

“How did I not know, Cas? How could I have missed this?”

“You were a child.”

“Not the whole time, I wasn’t,” Sam says bitterly. “God, I remember when I was seventeen and that fucking landlord in Lincoln kept jacking rent up, Dean would be out all night. And he’d come back with money. Then he’d go stand in the shower for half an hour. I thought-- I don’t know what I thought, but it wasn’t…” Sam trails off.

“You were,” Cas repeats, “a child. It was not your fault that Dean was placed in an untenable position.”

“If I’d known--”

“I didn’t want you to know,” Dean says from the entryway. Sam spins around in his chair. “I’d rather’ve died than have you know.”

Sam’s throat clicks as he tries to swallow. “Dean--”

“Let’s go.” Dean picks up the bag Cas packed for him and strides towards the garage. Sam scrambles out of his seat and follows. 

Dean turns up _Master of Puppets_ loud enough to discourage all conversation. Sam exchanges the occasional glance with Cas in the rearview mirror, but Sam doesn’t dare talk until the tape ends. 

Before Dean can replace it with _Led Zeppelin III_ , Sam asks, “What did you tell Jack?”

Sam sees the anger flare over Dean’s face before Dean locks it away again. When Dean responds, his voice is flat. “I told him what I told Eileen.”

“And what else?” Sam’s pressing now, he knows, but he wants to know if he needs to damage control. And a small, selfish part of himself wants to know what Dean would have told him as a kid. How Dean would have explained it.

Dean cranks _Immigrant Song_ up. 

Sam drops it. 

They stop in Cheyenne after ten and a half hours. Dean drops his bag on the bed closest to the door of their room, walks out of the room, and screeches out of the motel parking lot. Sam and Cas let him go. 

Sam sits down at the wobbly desk and says, “Shit.”

“He’ll be back.”

“I know.” And Sam does. Dean has never left him or Cas, not really. “I just-- where’s he going? What if it’s a bar?”

“Then he will call, and we will pick him up,” Cas says evenly. “And we will deal with the aftermath as we can.”

Sam knows that’s the right answer, but that doesn’t make it any easier to hear. Cas sits on the edge of the bed Dean claimed and waits patiently for Sam to collect his thoughts.

“How are you holding up?” Sam asks, slightly ashamed at how long it took him to remember to ask. 

“There is nothing about Dean which could make me love him less. That is what matters at the moment.”

“Yeah, but how are _you_?”

Cas smiles briefly. “I am as well as I need to be for Dean. My feelings have no bearing on what we must do.”

“Cas--”

The angel raises a hand. Sam quiets. “But,” Cas continues, “I confess that I am… unsure how to proceed. The situation is outside of my experience.”

“Mine too. Not everyday that--” Sam cuts himself off before he can say something he would regret. 

Cas nods. “Yes. Thankfully.”

Sam cracks up. 

Over the sound of his own laughter, Sam hears Cas say his name. Sam can’t quite manage to stop laughing long enough to respond. Distantly, Sam realizes that he might be having a panic attack.

Cas’ hand forces Sam’s head between his knees. “Breathe,” Cas orders. His hand stays on Sam’s neck, a weight grounding Sam to reality. “In for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. Come on, Sam, listen to me. Inhale.”

Sam manages to suck in a ragged breath. Cas counts off the seconds and Sam does his best to match the angel’s steady count. 

Finally, Sam’s heart rate returns to almost normal. Cas drops his hand and Sam sits up. His whole body feels flushed and sweaty.

“Shit.” Sam rakes a hand through his hair. “ _Shit_.”

“That was a perfectly normal response,” Cas tells him. The angel perches on the edge of Sam’s bed. “You are under tremendous pressure.”

“I’m-- _I’m_ under pressure? Cable news is psychoanalyzing Dean’s blowjob technique, and _I’m_ the one having a panic attack? Tell me, Cas, how the hell does that make sense?”

“It is not, as Dean might say, “the Trauma Olympics”. It does not need to make sense. You are stressed, and worried, and that is enough to make your reaction reasonable.”

Sam turns that over in his head. “Yeah.”

Cas accepts that, thankfully. He moves back to Dean’s bed and, toeing his shoes off, reclines against the pillows. His movements are so much more human than they used to be. Cas moves almost like Sam and Dean do, now.

Sam turns on the TV. The news anchor on the screen is mid-sentence: “--no telling how young Winchester began, but even at a mature age, prostitution is--”

Sam hits the power button on the remote so hard the plastic creaks. 

“How young was he?” Sam asks Cas with his eyes fixed on the blank screen, not really hoping for an answer. “When he started?”

“Ask Dean.”

Sam nods. “I shouldn’t have asked you. Not right.”

“No,” Cas agrees. “But he would probably tell you, if you asked.”

The thing is, Cas isn’t wrong. Dean uses honesty like a weapon when the situation is down to the wire. 

“Cas?”

Cas rotates his head to look at Sam. “Yes?”

“Do I want to know?”

Cas returns his gaze to the ceiling. “I can’t tell you that, Sam.”

The two of them sit in silence until Dean unlocks the door. 

Dean has a bag of food. He doesn’t smell like booze, and he’s not stumbling. 

Sam doesn’t want to admit how much of a relief that is. 

“Soup’s up,” Dean says, and if Dean’s voice is harsher than usual, Sam isn’t going to mention it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on Tumblr as crucifixinhell if you want to feed the muses and give me a prompt.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a filler chapter, but I had to set up some things.  
> Thanks for reading, hope you like it, and I love comments :)

Sam dreams about the Cage. 

It’s not an unusual occurrence, but it is an unwelcome one. In this version of the dream, Lucifer and Michael speak with the voices of the men from the video.

When Sam wakes himself up by jackknifing upright, there’s no one in the bed next to his. 

Sam takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, counts to ten, and looks again. 

Neither Cas or Dean is there. The bathroom light is shining through the crack under the door, though, and Sam can hear the shower going.

Sam really doesn’t want to interrupt them having shower sex-- _again_ , you’d think an angel of the Lord would have more modesty, but apparently not-- but he’s worried enough to knock on the bathroom door. He gets no answer. 

“Dean? Cas?”

Dean responds after a worryingly long pause. “What, Sam?”

“You okay?”

“Fine,” Dean says. 

Dean does not sound fine.

“I’m coming in.”

“Free country.”

Sam opens the unlocked door. Dean is sitting in the bathtub with the shower on. His legs are pulled up to his chest. Sam checks the water temperature and dives for the dials on the wall when he finds it freezing. 

“Jesus, Dean, how long have you been in here?”

“Dunno.”

Sam manages to get the water turned off. “You’re gonna get hypothermia or something. What the hell?”

“Felt dirty,” Dean says. The statement makes Sam rock back on his heels. 

“Okay. Okay. Where’s Cas?”

“He didn’t tell me where he was going.”

Sam mentally sets a countdown to when he’ll go from mad at Cas for leaving Dean to worried Cas has been abducted. Again.

“Can you get dried off?”

“I’m not a fucking invalid.” Dean doesn’t move.

“Forgive me for being concerned when I find you in the bottom of an ice-cold shower at--” Sam checks his watch-- “roughly one thirty in the morning.”

“Get out.”

Sam swallows several choice phrases and obeys. The door locks behind him.

Four minutes later-- Sam times it, wondering the whole time when he can justify kicking down the door-- Dean gets back in bed. 

With the worry out of his system, Sam crashes hard.

When Sam wakes up again, Cas is still gone and Dean’s standing outside. Sam pulls on a pair of jeans and goes to join his brother. 

The smell of smoke hits Sam the moment he opens the door. Dean doesn’t look at him, just takes another drag off his cigarette and exhales smoke through his nose. 

After Dean got him from Stanford, Sam bitched about lung cancer and the importance of health in their line of work until Dean swapped out his cigarettes for a lot of nicotine gum. In the year before Dean went to Hell, he’d started smoking again. There hadn’t been much Sam could say to that, not when Dean didn’t believe he could be saved. 

(And in the end, Sam couldn’t save him anyway.)

Dean didn’t smoke after he got out of the pit, though. From the way the smell of smoke made Sam have panic attacks for a while after the Cage, Sam’s pretty sure of the reason for Dean’s decision there. 

“You quit thirteen years ago,” Sam says.

Dean snorts. “More or less.”

 _More or less_ probably means _I only smoke when you’re not around_. Sam lets that part go and asks, “So what gives?”

Dean stares hard at the Impala. “You get one question about all this shit, Sam. One. You wanna spend it on this?”

Sam almost pushes for more than that. Dean can lock up tighter than anyone else on the planet when he wants to, but Sam’s gotten good at pushing every single button Dean has. 

Sam could probably get more than one question answered.

But Sam’s done a lot of research into the effects of trauma-- for himself, for his family, for the people they help-- and he knows that pushing isn’t usually a good idea, particularly when it comes to sexual assault. 

He’d wanted to be a psychiatrist, once. 

“No,” Sam says. “I’ll keep it for now.”

Dean nods and holds out the pack of cigarettes. “You want one?”

Sam smoked exactly once in college, and he’d been convinced he was going to die for weeks. “No.”

“Then what the fuck do you want?”

“Where’s Cas?” Sam asks. It’s not what he wants to ask, but he’s respecting Dean’s one question rule. 

Dean shrugs. “He wanted to talk to Gabriel, apparently. Texted a few minutes ago.”

That was unexpected. “Why?”

“No clue. He doesn’t tell me everything, you know.” Dean’s tone is waspish.

Dean is trying to shove Sam away. Sam doesn’t leave. When Dean tries to make him leave? That’s when Dean needs Sam.

Sam settles on, “You hungry?” as a response. 

Dean nods. He grinds out his cigarette with his boot heel. “You might want to put a shirt on before we go anywhere, though. “

Sam looks down. “Oh. Right.”

“Unless you’re looking to give the locals a heart attack. Maybe run away with a cowboy’s wife, free up Eileen for someone better--”

Sam punches Dean in the arm gently.

Cas appears in the backseat just after Sam and Dean decide to take off without him. Dean doesn’t even swerve at the angel’s sudden presence.

“What did Gabriel have to say?” Dean asks. 

“That he has no love for pedophiles,” Cas responds. It’s blunt-- too blunt, Sam realizes, as Dean’s hands go white around the steering wheel. Usually, Sam appreciates Cas’ lack of subtlety, but at the moment he’s cursing it.

“I wasn’t a goddamn child.” Dean’s voice is low and dangerous, but his volume increases as he speaks. “If you want to talk about children, we can talk about Sam and--”

“You--” Cas glances at Sam and takes a measured breath. When he speaks again, his tone is even. “We can address that later. Regardless, Gabriel said he has nothing better to do than ruin the lives of those exploiting the video.”

At least a mile goes by before Dean says, barely audible, “Thanks, Cas.”

“You are welcome, Dean.”

Sam smiles to himself. 

Dean reaches over and punches him in the arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: TFW gets to Reno.  
> EDIT: this story now has a beta! :)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr as crucifixinhell.


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